Abuse misinforms us about our identity and our value. Recovery is the restoration of our true selves. Find out how we uncover the truth in this ten minute audio discussion by Christina Enevoldsen and Darlene Ouimet.

“I became my own advocate and I believe that’s the only way we get to the real truth. I had to look at that situation and I had just accepted that she hated me because I was not an attractive child or I was some kind of a child that made this adult hate me. But was I REALLY doing something as a child that was so irritating to this teacher that she should threaten to cut my hair off or give me zeros on my test? She was humiliating me in front of the whole class. Was that really right? NO, the truth is that it wasn’t right and I wasn’t the one who was wrong. That was a big deal in the way I saw myself—whether I was important or not, whether I was loveable or not, whether I was worthy of love and protection or not. I grew thinking I wasn’t worthy of love or protection, that the defect was in me and I had to turn that around. And our abusers are not going to do that for us. We have to do that for ourselves if we are going to recover.”

Christina Enevoldsen is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Christina’s passions are writing and speaking about her own journey of healing from abuse and inspiring people toward wholeness. She and her husband live in Los Angeles and share three children and four grandchildren.

Darlene Ouimet is an inspirational speaker, certified professional life coach and mental health advocate. While speaking in mental health seminars about her complete recovery from dissociated identity disorder, chronic depression, and a lifetime of low self-esteem, Darlene realized that her journey to wholeness had a unique kind of impact and she embraced a new life purpose—to deliver this message of hope, healing and full recovery to a hurting world. Darlene authors a high traffic blog called “Emerging from Broken—from surviving to thriving on the journey to wholeness.”

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